Girls In Tech

Since its launch in February, Google Buzz has dominated headlines from the blogosphere to the twittersphere, and every social media sphere in between. From people decrying it as yet another nail in the coffin of personal privacy to people applauding it as a bold step forward for communication and collaboration, Buzz has certainly lived up to its name – at least in terms of all the attention its gotten in the past month.

So what is Buzz? Well, according to Google itself “Google Buzz lets you share updates, photos, links, and pretty much anything else you’d like with your Gmail contacts; it’s an easy way to follow your friends, too. When you click Buzz in your Gmail account, you’ll see the stream of posts from people you’re following, and a box for you to post your updates.” So basically, Buzz is a way for you to post items that are shared with your Gmail contacts, and people who follow you on the service. Sort of like a Facebook status update for your Gmail.

Of course, like any good web product, there’s a lot more to it than just the elevator pitch. Buzz is already proving to be a valuable tool for soliciting feedback on a project, gathering opinions on a popular topic and finding targeted information that’s relevant to you. Which, of course, makes it a social media marketer’s wet dream, and has advertisers salivating over the possibility that Google may now have yet another place to distribute its patented brand of extremely targeted ads.

But, if you’re not looking to solicit feedback from your friends or sell something to your followers, why should you use Buzz? Well, the answer lies in that whole targeted information thing. That’s right, Buzz is yet another stream of information you can tap into to find out what’s trending and what your friends are talking about. But, because it maps back to your Gmail contacts, the theory is that it’s even more targeted than Twitter, more focused than Facebook and more interesting than random RSS feeds. The idea is that if you’re subscribing to people you already communicate with regularly via email, you will be more interested in what those people have to say than what Followed #4,238 on Twitter is talking about. And, of course, there are all those nifty Google algorithms to help really steer your Buzz stream.

I’ve been using it for a few weeks now, and I have to say my feelings are mixed. Mostly because I haven’t yet been able to really slot Buzz into my daily social media habits. Between Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, Reddit, Delicious, Stumble and the occasional email update from my mom, I’m pretty well situated when it comes to keeping abreast of the news and information I care about. So far, Buzz hasn’t yet evolved from a fun distraction into a daily information addiction the way those other services have. That said, now that there’s a Buzz iPhone app, I might finally be able to find a way to fit that fun new distraction into my daily routine. If only so I can make more “I just got so buzzed” puns on Twitter.

J.B.

I’d like to introduce Jane, GIT Athens’ latest blogger. We are happy to have another brave soul come on board here in Athens.  One by one we are getting women into tech!

Technology Trekking by J. Briganti

It doesn’t require special clothing or special shoes but if you’re 40 something and haven’t been doing much technology trekking then it can be a bit perplexing.  I recently was invited to preview Google Wave.  Interesting I thought, so I clicked whereas instructed and hoped for the best.

Not having a Google account I was prompted to create one.  I paused for a few seconds and then thought to myself, why not.  I proceeded to follow the step by step instructions, clicking away here and there and before I knew it, I had myself a Google account.  Hurray, so far so good, I thought.   Feeling inspired, I then decided to download something called Google Chrome, which I would later learn is a web browser aiming to improve security, speed and stability.  What a great tool to have, I thought.

The idea of having real-time communication and collaboration is very exciting and I was eager to send a wave.  So, without further hesitation I clicked on contacts, choosing the only name which was in my box, proceeded to write a brief message in the window provided and then finally clicked on done, located at the bottom of the text window.  I was pretty sure that my wave went but was not totally convinced.  The absence of a confirmation in the form of sent left me with a little uncertainty.

Randomly clicking away at the various options available in the navigation, inbox and text windows, I soon realized how important it is to be able to utilize all of these different tools in order to endure all that Google Wave has to offer.  So, I decided to browse through the Google Wave Help and am I glad I did.  It was very user friendly and I found a “how to” explanation for every transaction that I would soon be interested in using.  Needless to say, I am ardently waiting to fill my contact box with fellow wavers.

My accomplishments may seem trivial to some, I’m sure, but for me it was exhilarating.  Technology and I are still a union in the making and I am excited about venturing into new territories.  I personally plan to hike over one small hill at a time, enjoying the scenery as I go.  Many thanks to Google Wave Help for supplying the answers to questions that I hadn’t yet thought to ask.

What we planned to do: publicize an event to girls in Silicon Valley, an iPhone app store competition in which they, grouped into teams, were to design and storyboard a brand new iPhone app.  They would have to think through a quick and dirty business plan and pitch it in 60 seconds. And the winners would take home brand new iPod Touches!

We hoped that by hosting a fun, enticing, and engaging competition, we could show the participating girls that careers in engineering and science weren’t limited to the stereotypical images of pocker protectors and protractors we see on TV.

What we did do: exactly that, and more.

As I walked around the room while the girls and their mentors were chattering excitedly about their ideas, I knew we had done it– we had clusters of girls at each table from all different schools in Silicon Valley, including a group of girls who traveled to Cupertino all the way from San Francisco that had already completed high school but were now participating in a program which prepares them for particular trades that require a certification program or two year degree. Everybody was talking to each other freely, shooting off ideas with confidence and finesse. Nobody cared that the tables were mixed up with girls of different ages (14-17) or that they hadn’t ever met before. Likewise they were interacting with each mentor with enthusiasm and respect. These mentors were women who had technical and engineering backgrounds who worked at Apple, Virgin America, and Admob and volunteered their time as resources for the inspiration and guidance of this group of girls during the competition. And everyone had a blast!

The feedback from the post-event survey was wonderfully positive. The girls said things like:

“I learned that there is a lot more to engineering than sitting behind a computer and [that] science and math really help.” “”I thought the mentors were cool and had a lot of variety of careers and I learned that a positive team-work attitude was cool.” “I learned that engineering is an option for girls and that I wouldn’t be alone.”

Ultimately, the winning app, titled “Stop, Shop and Go!” had most of the elements of a real iPhone app people clamor to use on a daily basis– the melding of geographic data, coupon codes, and (duh!) a shopping guide. All of the apps that were dreamt up that day were feasible– now if we could only create them all! The presentations, while limited to 60 seconds, were vivid, engaging, amusing, and fearless. These girls rocked it.

I would say, without hesitation, that the Girls in Tech mentorshorship debut was a resounding success. I would also say, this raises the bar so high on what’s still to come!

In the spring, we’re taking the involvement to a whole new level. We are partnering with Iridescent again to put on the Technovation Challenge 2010! This time, it won’t be one evening, but several months of teamwork, leadership, and engineering. The girls will learn, with the guidance of professional women in the tech industry, how to design and program cool mobile apps using App Inventor for Android, a new programming language developed by Google. Once created, these apps will be presented to a real team of venture capitalists for prizes, feedback, and the chance to be recruited into summer internships at some of the coolest local startups. Don’t you wish you were still in high school?

We can’t make this level of awesomeness happen, however, without help. If you are a female professional in the Silicon  Valley area, I hope that you will think about joining us for our program in February.  We will be working with the students twice a week for 8 weeks (Tuesdays and Thursdays 5pm – 7pm beginning on February 23rd).  The girls and their mentors (looking at you!…hopefully) will work in teams to learn how to program mobile apps for Android and they will develop working prototypes.  The teams will also get coaching from VCs and entrepreneurs on writing a business plan for their app ideas.  We are building an exciting team of VCs, entrepreneurs, and speakers that will focus on teaching various parts of the program, so it promises to be a great learning experience for students and mentors alike.  If you have ever done any kind of programming before or are interested in learning how to program in this new language, the girls would greatly benefit from working with you, so please consider joining.

We even had a fellow GIT pro photographer hook it up! Thanks Elizabeth McGinnis!

One of the things that we learned from our experience on Friday is that it works much better to have two mentors per team, since mentors often have other commitments and may have to step out from time to time.  So if you’re interested in mentoring in the Spring, but are not sure if you can make it to every meeting, let us know and we can either pair you up with another mentor or you can sign up with a friend!

Thanks E McG for capturing these ladies' true essence!

Girls in Tech and Iridescent made something really cool happen for a group of enthusiastic girls this past Friday. We want to do it again, on a much bigger and hopefully even more impacting scale. Will you help us?

What does Oscar de la Renta, Google, Armani, and coding have in common? Well, for one of Glamour’s Women of the Year only one person came to mind, Marissa Mayer. Marissa Mayer is Vice President of Search and User Experience, and is a 10-year veteran of Google.

Mayer was recently featured in Vogue and it’s not everyday that a woman in tech is featured in a Fashion magazine. However, it’s very refreshing, because Mayer is not a typical geek. Sitting in her office at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA, making decisions in Manolos and beaded Carolina Herrera separates, you’re going to stand out amongst all the other geeks.

In 1999, Mayer joined Google as one of their first female engineers. She led the user interface and web server teams at that time. As Google has grown, so has Mayer’s responsibilities. She oversees the development, code-writing, and launch of Gmail, Google Maps, iGoogle, Google Chrome, Google Health, and Google News.

For me, the tech industry is not only still defined by mostly geeky men, but even when we think of women that work in the industry, they are thought of as being just as geeky. Marissa Mayer really defies that stereotype. On her 34th birthday this past May, she happens to be at her office, on a Saturday of all days. She is interviewing people for the associate-product-manager position. Five o’clock rolls around and she goes home to San Francisco wearing turquoise-fringed Manolos and an Alberta Ferretti dress to celebrate her birthday. When I read that in the Vogue article, I thought to myself “I wonder which dress it was from Ferretti?” . My point is, women like Mayer are very inspiring for young girls that want to get involved with computer science, technology, or want to work for companies like Google, but still be “girls”.

Glamour also names the following as Women of the Year. Congrats to all!
Rihanna: Back On Top!
Maria Shriver: The Dynamo
Stella McCartney: The Designer
Amy Poehler: The Entertainer
Serena Williams: The Athlete
Jane Aronson: The Guardian Angel
Susan Rice: The Peacemaker
Euna Lee and Laura Ling: The Journalists
The Women of Iran’s One Million Signatures Campaign: The Activists
Maya Angelou: The Poet
The 2009 Woman of Your Year
Women of the Year Fund [main]
Michelle Obama: Your First Lady (Special Recognition)

*Photograph by Brigitte Lacombe in Mayer’s Google office in Mountain View, California

This weekend, Girls in Tech held our first Annual Retreat in Santa Cruz.  The day was packed full of hands-on learning sessions, starting with a Social Media Boot Camp with JD Lasica, a leading expert on social media and founder of socialmedia.biz.  JD shared best practices for businesses engaging in social media and identified leading campaigns that have been successful.

Photo credit: Seana Norvell

Kristin Schaefer and Bronwyn Saglimbeni got us out of our chairs and led an interactive and powerful Public Speaking Workshop.  Here are a few of the tips and tactics they shared with us on being a good speaker

1. Be a great story-teller and keep it conversational (people love to hear stories!)
2. Pick a person or several people to talk to (engages the audience)
3. Fewer words are more powerful (avoid fillers i.e. um, like, you know, I think…)
4. Use the physical space you have (don’t be rooted to one spot)
5. Keep an open, active, pose and free your hands to express yourself as you talk
6. Be authentic (Who are you and what are you here to do?)

Our keynote speaker was Megan Smith, VP of New Business Development at Google and General Manager of Google.Org.  Megan talked about the power of data and interconnection to change the world.  She gave us several examples including how the connection of data has been used to:

1.)    Track public health issues – Using Google Health, Google is able to see the correlation between the number of searches on a particular health term such as “flu”, and reports from the CDC on flu numbers.
2.)    Power people’s ability to advance civil liberties. (by making information available in countries where the media is tightly controlled)
3.)    Help the environment.  Google .org’s PowerMeter is a free electricity usage monitoring tool that people can use to review their power usage.

In summarizing the trait that has allowed Megan to be amazingly successful in her career, her good friend, David Hoffman, volunteered that “When faced with challenges, she believes there has to be a way.”

After the keynote, Gina Bauman and Elizabeth Weil of Institutional Venture Partners gave us a quick overview of the venture capital space.  And to close out the day Priya Ganapati sat down with Plantronics’ VP of Innovation, Joyce Shimizu.  Joyce shared the following tips on being a successful leader:

1.)    Be responsive to Change
2.)    Learn how to fly the plane, as well as land it (be able to set the 30,000 ft vision)
3.)    For work life/balance: Keep a short list of priorities, and enjoy the journey, don’t just concentrate on the destination.

Big thanks to all of our amazing speakers and to Seana Norvell, Managing Director of our Santa Cruz chapter, for organized an awesome first annual GIT retreat.

Communications Manager, Multiple Focus Areas – Mountain View

The area: Communications

It’s our job to help inform and educate consumers, partners and opinion formers about the benefits of Google’s products, our distinctive business ethos and approach to the big public policy issues of the day. We are looking for quick witted, entrepreneurial and intellectually curious people to join the team. To succeed here you’ll need to be able to combine creativity with the organizational skills to manage numerous different projects to tight deadlines all at once, as well enjoy pitching to all kinds of journalists, bloggers and commentators (we find it hard too!). Things happen quickly at Google and to get stuff done here you need to be an enthusiastic team player – a self-starter who can work cross-functionally and isn’t frightened to take risks or try out new ways of doing things.

The role: Communications Manager, Multiple Focus

As a member of the Communications team based at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California you will work cross functionally (and with our team) to help communicate Google’s developer products and programs, devise specific campaigns that establish solid contacts with journalists, face-to-face meetings with commentators and other opinion formers and develop print and web-based materials targeted at a range of different audiences, and counter misinformation and mitigate negative media coverage that might lead to unnecessary regulation or interfere with our business and ability to serve our users in other ways. Managers are very strong writers who can process complex technology issues – through blog posts, FAQs, video scripts and more – and explain them in clear language internally and externally.

To apply for this job or to learn about other job openings, please email Arne at arne@google.com

Photos by: Adriana Gascoigne, Dave McClure, Christine Lu, Michael Su and Tina Tran

Now that the jetlag has worn off, I’m left in awe of how spectacularly successful and rewarding the Geeks on a Plane tour was. Not only did we gain in depth knowledge of the tech environment in China and Japan, we connected with leading experts from the top startups across the hottest industries (i.e. games, social media, and search). We met some amazing women entrepreneurs and will be launching a Girls in Tech China chapter with Jenny Bai, CEO of The Red Connect, at the helm.

The sheer number and caliber of local contacts we made was almost overwhelming. Had we traveled as individuals to Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo, it would have taken at least six months to a year to form the bonds and connections that we did in ten days.

As if meeting the most talented locals wasn’t enough, the tour itself was packed with an impressive group of passionate, whip-smart entrepreneurial geeks who also happened to be loads of fun. Or as one of the speakers put it, “You guys don’t look like a bunch of geeks to me!” He may have been referring to the resident male Blue Steel models in our group, Dan Martell and Marcus Nelson. Or perhaps he caught an eyeful of the two most fashionable geeks on the tour, Dan “hiked the Great Wall in pointy leather boots” Gould and Josh “Travolta” Williams.

I can’t emphasize enough what an amazing job the Geeks on a Plane organizers did in selecting participants for the tour, and in thinking of every detail while planning a trip that allowed us to meet the leading startups in China and Japan through a mix of events that were insightful, inspiring, and super fun. Dave McClure of the Founders Fund, Georg Godula of Web2Asia, and Christine Lu of Cilantro Media are superstar organizers and people connectors!

In the list below, I’ve broken down my top ten favorite experiences from the Geeks on a Plane tour into two Top 5 lists — one for the sessions and one for the local outings.

Top 5 Sessions

5. BarCamp Shanghai — James Gwertzman gave a great overview of PopCap’s strategic entry into China
4. Tokyo Startonomics — Two words: Eric Ries. Plus Joyce Kim and Dan Gould.
3. Brunch interview with Mixi CEO, Kenji Kasahara
2. TEDxShanghai – Inspiration through music and ideas worth sharing
1. Beijing Startonomics – From Dr. Kai Fu Lee, Google China’s president, to Kaiser Kuo, Frank Yu, and Steve Mushero, this session was chockfull of valuable insights about doing business in China and what it takes to succeed in this rapidly growing market for startups.

Top 5 Fun Outings

5. Geeks in a Bus — All over Shanghai & Beijing
4. Geeks on an Observation Deck — Shanghai World Financial Center
3. Geeks in a Photo Booth — Fitting 8 geeks into one photo booth atop Tokyo
2. Geeks on the Dance Floor — Dance off at M1NT on the last night of the GoaP tour
1. Geeks on a Wall — Hiking the Great Wall of China

Finally, this roundup wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention the one geek on the tour who made the biggest splash of all: Michael Su of Break Media. Michael (pictured above on the bottom right) joined the tour on the China portion of our trip, flying directly from LAX to Beijing. Unfortunately, he had the misfortune of sitting two rows in front of a person who had the Swine Flu on the plane. The good news is that we got to spend two days with him before the Chinese authorities found him and took him away. Good luck and bad luck I suppose, the two days he was with us, in my opinion, were the best days on the tour — both earning #1 spots above. Coincidence? I think not. Check out his HILARIOUS blogpost on”Life in the Big House” here. For the record, he did not have the Swine Flu!

Internet today brings all corners of the world to your fingertips. Learn what Susie Q is doing in New York City via her Twitter account – or what Barack Obama’s travel agenda is the first week in May. How are we able to parse through such a labyrinth and volume of information to get to the heart of good and solid information we seek? This is how I do so in three easy steps:

1. Outsource.
a. Register for daily updates via Google using Google Alerts on any topic you’re seeking to become more knowledgeable.
b. Follow the Leader: Identify industry or topic experts and connect with them: on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and their blogs.  Ask them questions – they are responsive – trust me. If they’re not, you have nothing to lose.

2. Network.
a. Use the internet via social and professional websites to seek out industry conferences and events. Attend them!
b. Seek out academics in the area – go to university websites and search by department.  Academics are a good resource for interesting insight and know of great resources, groups and materials you can reference.  In summary: Look up academic leaders on university websites, email them and ask them your questions.

3. Have Conviction.
a. Take on a do-it-yourself attitude. The more interest and passion you exhibit, the more successful you will become at (1) and (2) above.
b. Learn it, Act upon it. Use the information and share it with your friends, colleagues and connections via your personal and professional blog, website, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. The more you let your interest be known, the more interesting and/or important information will come back to you.

While conducting a google search is always a good fallback plan, the more I’ve employed the above three steps to work for me, the better off I find my information and position to become an authority on those topics. The internet today isn’t just a sea of information – it’s a wealth of it. Make it work for you!